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The purpose of the Florida Native Plant Society (FNPS) is to promote the preservation, conservation, and restoration of the native plants and native plant communities of Florida. This blog presents ideas and information to further the cause of Florida's native plants and ecosystems.

Methods to Remember: Concrete Steps for Teaching Conservation to Kids

Now more than ever, environmental conservation is a hot
button issue. Despite the fact that it may feel like an individual contribution
to cleaning up the environment is insignificant, enough individuals can
effectively become a collective. This means that our kids have also got to be
taught how to conserve their environment and care for their local plantlife.
For kids it may be difficult to understand environmental conservation and why
it is so important, but with these simple steps you can make it fun, simple and
engaging while they're interacting with your garden or the local flora.

Too many people still don’t recycle their waste on a daily
basis. Although multi-national companies are steadily becoming more
environmentally friendly with their products, some still dispose of their waste
in an inappropriate way. From a young age encourage kids to differentiate
between what can and cannot be recycled.

Educate Your Kids

Education about environmental conservation at an early age
is key. Watching documentaries, attending conservation workshops and creating a
life list (where your child lists all the flora and fauna they've found) are all
great ways to help a young conservationist become enthusiastic about
nature.

Children naturally want to know more. They’re curious by the
world around them and will always want to ask “Why?”. Take this opportunity to
tell them a little about the environment and why it’s so important. It’s not
necessary to delve into environmental sciences, keep it simple with only the
headlines, enough to satisfy their curiosity.

If possible, you can try and show them the effects that
environmental pollution has on plant life. Seeing is believing, and perhaps
doubly so for kids.

Every child loves games. In fact, playing games is
fundamental to a child’s upbringing and psychological development, and playtime
every day makes for a happy and healthy child. However, that doesn’t mean that
playtime can’t be used to achieve two objectives in one fell swoop.

Children are like sponges, so it’s best to take advantage of
this while you can. Introduce them to gardening and basic botany. How to plant
different seeds safely and how to compost in a safe and efficient manner. Plus,
nothing will beat the smile on a child’s face when they see a plant that
they’ve grown by themselves.

Get the kids involved and let them do the work. They’ll not
only reap the benefits of learning some basic techniques of growing plants, but
they’re more likely to remember it because they did it themselves. Once you
feel they're ready you can take a day trip to a garden center and have lots of
fun choosing what sort of plants they’d like to cultivate next.

Introduce The Kids to Animals

For children who grow up in the city, it can actually be
tough for them to have a concrete relationship with animals. Indeed, some grow
up not only being distant from them, but being afraid. This is a complete
tragedy and in their adult life it could lead to apathy when it comes to animal
conservation efforts.

The most obvious way to do involve your children with
animals is to introduce a pet to the house. Despite the fact that this is
probably the safest way to do it, pets (especially dogs) can be expensive, time
consuming and a long term investment. If you’re not 100% comfortable with
having a pet in the house then it’s a better idea not to get a pet at
all.

However, that doesn’t mean your kid need to be isolated from
wildlife. Most cities will have a park nearby where local wildlife can be
spotted and interacted with. Nothing will beat the smile on your child’s face
when they interact with animals. If you live further out from a big city, it’s
more likely that a child will have a relationship with some form of animal, but
if not, do what you can to introduce an animal or animal friendly behavior into
your child’s life as soon as possible.

Additionally, you can introduce your kid to the different
animals in your garden. Play a game with them where the goal is to find as many
different insects, birds and butterflies as possible in the garden. Then, you
can teach them about which species are beneficial to your garden, and which can
be detrimental.

Gently introduce how a degrading environment negatively
impacts an wildlife’s welfare. Try and highlight how animal species going
extinct is a tragedy that should be mourned. A child’s empathy is like nothing
else, and if anything, the thought of animals suffering will spur them to
action.

For modern kids, they may think that water is an infinite
resource that can be summoned at will from taps. However, if you tell them easy
to digest facts such as that only 1% of the world’s water is suitable for human
consumption and that our human population is increasing, that means that water
may become a more valuable resource as time goes on.

Turning off the tap when they brush their teeth, taking a
shower instead of taking a bath and using not to waste water when
gardening are all simple little techniques that they
should be able to introduce into their daily lives that will form long lasting
behaviors.

This of course goes doubly for watering the plants. Teach
your kids that watering established plantings with about an inch of water once
a week in the morning is the most efficient way to care for your plants,
especially as water restrictions may come into place in the hotter
months.

Our future starts with the next generation, and it’s our
responsibility to make sure they grow up to be responsible and environmentally
friendly adults, actively concerned with conserving the environment. There are
countless other activities that could be introduced to a child’s daily routine
while their in the garden, but the techniques suggested here should serve as a
strong springboard of a child’s environmental education.Jackie Edwards works as an editor, researcher and writer in Reno,
Nevada. Both she and her husband are keen environmentalists. With their two
young daughters as eager and active participants, they like to spend
family time working in their local area helping with everything from
recycling, picking up litter, to promoting wildlife conservation.

Introduction: Purple berries clinging around stems with bright green foliage make Callicarpa americana stand out from late summer to winter. It is easy to see how beautyberry got its common name. Don’t let its looks fool you though; Callicarpa is more than just eye candy. Callicarpa americana is useful medicinally and as food for wildlife and people. American Beautyberry is not fussy about location, soil or light requirements. This tough plant is an American Beauty in every sense of the word. Its name comes from Greek: Kalli, means beautiful; Karpos means fruit.

Historic Medicinal Uses:
Native Americans had many uses for beautberry, both internally and externally. According to Taylor (1940), Native Americans used beautyberry externally as a steam and topical application. All parts of the pla…

﻿ ﻿Australian pines seem to be everywhere in the coastal regions in the bottom half of Florida. Their name is deceiving because, while they are native to Australia, they aren't pines or even conifers. They are flowering trees with separate male and female flowers, and what look like needles are really green twiglets with close-set circles of tiny leaves that drop at the first sign of a drought. In the photo to the right, the light-colored lines are where leaves where once attached. Most of the photosynthesis takes place in the twiglets.

There are three species of Australian pine (Casuarina spp) that have been imported into Florida for various purposes. They were widely planted to soak up the "swamps" in Florida, stabilize canals, and hold beaches. Unfortunately for Florida's ecosystems, the "pines" accomplished all this and more--like seeding prolifically, growing five feet or more per year, producing dense shade, and emitting an herbicide that kills most a…

These perky natives have numerous and endearing charms. Authors and growers disagree about the proper Latin name, but they are in complete agreement that more people should use more coonties in their landscapes.

What's to like?
Coonties are spritely and graceful in their form, tough as the dickens, bright green all year, and host plant for the beautiful blue atala
hairstreak butterfly. In fact, coonties are the only larval food for atalas. You can use them as specimen or accent plants, mass them together for ground cover, or use them in a line as a border. And to top that off, they have an interesting sex life. A subject we hardly ever get to talk about around here. More on that later. See more in Roger Hammer's 1995 Palmetto article, The Coontie and the Atala Hairstreak.

Slow growers, coonties are more expensive to buy than some other natives by relative size, but don't let that put you off. They are well worth the investment. They can be planted in full sun or fairly …